The International Folk Festival Pokrovskye Kolokola is always a welcome event in Vilnius. Audiences and musicians look forward to the festival every autumn. This year, the 10th International Folk Festival lasted for five days and featured ensembles from 12 countries, treating the public to concerts, master classes, music premieres, expert discussions and unforgettable conversations at the city hall.
The organizers paid particular attention to the festival’s opening concert at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic. It featured premiere performances of two compositions by Linas Rimsa exploring the relationship between folklore and modernity, Old Belief and Woman’s Song. The former piece, inspired by the music legacy of Old Believers and exquisitely performed by the Arinushka ensemble, is already well-known and appreciated in Lithuania and abroad, while the latter composition is especially interesting due to the fact that its author gave the solo parts to pop singers.
In addition to musicians and music fans, the festival was attended by diplomats, Lithuanian parliamentarians and the mayor of Vilnius. Algirdas Sysas, Vice Speaker of the Seimas, expressed his admiration for the organizers’ professionalism and called the event a unique and large-scale celebration uniting world music groups from many countries in the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional city of Vilnius.
The concert entitled “Unique Traditions” was just as successful, giving the Vilnius public an opportunity to witness famous Georgian polyphonic singing, the unique folk-singing traditions of Belarus, Ryazan, Pskov and Vologda, Siberian dances, Tuvan throat-singing, the traditional styles of Mari El, ethnic regions of Latvia and Estonia and mountainous areas of Poland, the lyrical and ritual songs from Ukraine, restrained Norwegian dancers followed by passionate performances from Spain and Hungary, as well as the music legacy of Old Believers from Lithuania.
At every concert, the organizers thanked everyone who helped make the festival a reality, among them the Department for External Economic and International Relations of Moscow, the Moscow Center for International Cooperation and the Russkiy Mir Foundation.
